I am a complete history geek. It has come to my attention many times in recent and not-so-recent years that a lot of people are of the mind frame of “Oh, history is boring, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a bunch of dead guys, what’s so great about them?” I heard one of the best rebuttals to that “bunch of dead guys” comment from my dad not long ago. “Never forget that those ‘dead guys’ were once alive.”

And he’s right. They were just as alive as you and me. Part of the reason, I think, why so many people find history “boring and useless” is because we’re so far removed from it. We aren’t given anything we can relate to. The way history is taught in most places is absolutely appalling. Being told to read out of a textbook and do definitions is not history. History should be told as a series of stories. How every event leads to another. All the people as characters, all the events as a plot. But would most teachers ever do that? No. Because that’s not good for the “OMFG standardized tests!” I hate the education system.